Sydney Writers' Festival 2010

Gleebooks booksellers will have a stall at Pier 4/5 and Sydney Theatre at Walsh Bay. Titles of all writers appearing in the Festival will be available for purchase and signings.?

For all media equiries please contact the Festival's publicist Helen Johnstone

Tel: + 61 2 9252 7729
Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Held Monday 19 May - Sunday 25 May, 2003

This year's event continued the Festival's tradition of bringing together leading writers from Australia and abroad to discuss issues and ideas of importance. At a time when seismic shifts in world affairs demand our urgent consideration, the Festival was in a unique position to present a range of perspectives, from analysis of the big picture to the deeply personal.

In particular, the complexity of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East was examined by Palestinian and Israeli writers, and acclaimed British scholar Antony Beevor discussed war through the lens of the historian.

US author Jonathan Franzen explained how to be alone, while French intellectual Catherine Millet talked candidly about sex and intimacy. Prominent Australians, including Ghassan Hage articulated their visions for the nation, while John Birmingham and Alan Saunders discussed whether Sydney really is a harbour paradise.

Festival 2003 celebrated the imaginative world with a line-up of exceptional novelists and poets. Internationally renowned writers, including Janette Turner Hospital, David Malouf, Nicholas Shakespeare, Sonya Hartnett and CK Stead were joined by exciting new voices.

As always, there was lots of hilarity too. A trip back to the 70s with Graham Blundell, Melbourne funny guy Danny Katz in bed and an evening of Karaoke poetry! Writers Mandy Sayer and Louis Nowra conducted a literary walking tour of Kings Cross.

And, for the first time, we offered events for children at the Festival venue including leading writers Andy Griffiths and John Larkin.

View the 2003 Program

Sydney Writers' Festival will respect your privacy and the security of your email address and personal information. We will not keep or disclose any personal information to third parties.

Sydney Writers' Festival recognises the importance of your privacy and our Privacy Policy is intended to represent industry practice and to comply with our obligations under the Privacy Act 1988.

Sydney Writers' Festival currently is without peer in Australia and is recognised both locally and internationally as one of the world's finest literary celebrations.

In 2009 the Festival reached attendance figures of more than 81,000 at over 350 events.

The Festival's reach continues to increase. This year, audiences turned out in their thousands to events across central Sydney and out to Liverpool, Campbelltown, Auburn, Blacktown, Parramatta, Penrith, Newcastle, Wollongong and the Blue Mountains to listen to more than 400 authors inspire them with their eloquence, wisdom and ideas.

Our commitment to innovation, compelling programming, intellectual rigor, diversity and professionalism has proved that in this particular cultural arena, Sydney is leading Australia.

As we look to 2010, Sydney Writers' Festival has much to celebrate. The Festival has grown from strength to strength with each year and has decisively claimed a leading position in the Australian cultural events calendar and is enjoying an excellent international reputation.

Companies, Trusts and Foundations play a vital role in the success of the Festival through their support and there are many benefits our Partners can gain from joining us:

Partnering with us is widely acknowledged as a sophisticated marketing tool. We offer you the potential to add value to your business and inspire the creativity of your staff and stakeholders. We also offer the opportunity to market your product to our corporate supporters, government and a diverse and discerning audience of around 80,000.

Our partnering opportunities are unique and varied. Each of our Partners has individual needs and we enjoy working closely with them, taking an individual and creative approach to ensure that partnerships meet set objectives and are, most importantly, rewarding.

If you would like to find out more about becoming a Partner of the Festival we would love to hear from you, please contact:

Janine Collins, Development Manager
Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

This year marked some exciting changes, new developments and growth for Australia?s boldest literary event. Not only did we have an exciting line-up of more than 200 international and local guests to interest, engage and inspire audiences, but we also had a new venue to accommodate the growing number of people who come to the festival.

The Festival was delighted to make use of the beautiful, new (and very large) Sydney Theatre at Walsh Bay as a complement to our much loved Wharf 4/5.

We were proud to feature the premier English dramatist, Alan Bennett, who was interviewed live, via satellite, for the festival?s opening night.

Prestigious author, the 2003 Man Booker prize winner, DBC Pierre, spoke about his book Vernon God Little, the death of satire and the media, and philosopher Alain de Botton talked about Status Anxiety.

Hilary Mantel, British critic and author, joined us, as did Tim Krabbe from the Netherlands, the best-selling author of The Vanishing. Susanna Moore spoke to film director Jane Campion about their collaboration on Moore?s book In the Cut.

Louis de Bernieres spoke about and read from his new release, Birds Without Wings. From Iraq we had a young man with the pseudonym of Salam Pax. He?ll talked about that famous weblog and what?s really going on in his war-torn country now. John W. Dean, former Nixon counsel, presented an insider?s view of US politics and discussed his new book, Worse than Watergate.

We were proud to bring you Harvey Pekar, whose comics were the focus of the cult film American Splendor, Alexei Sayle, author and famous comedian, and the very up-and-coming American short-story writer ZZ Packer. David Sedaris, a columnist for The New Yorker and Esquire and an acclaimed and very funny author, appeared at the Sydney Theatre.

View the 2004 Program

ABC TV Studio
700 Harris Street, Ultimo

Ariel Booksellers
42 Oxford Street, Paddington

Art Gallery of NSW (AGNSW)
Art Gallery Road, The Domain

B?casse Restaurant
204 Clarence Street, Sydney

Cafe Sydney
5^th floor, Customs House,
31 Alfred Street, Circular Quay

Chauvel Cinema (CC)
Paddington Town Hall, Corner Oxford and Oatley Streets, Paddington
Chauvel Infoline 9361 5398

City Recital Hall Angel Place (CRH)
Angel Place is adjacent to Martin Place at Wynyard.
Parking is available at Wilson Parking Angel Place Car Park, 123 Pitt Street.
$16 flat rate after 5.00pm

Cockatoo Island (CI)
The Parramatta River service now stops at Cockatoo Island. It departs from Wharf 5 at Circular Quay. Tickets cost $5.20 one way and $10.40 return.
Weekend ferry timetable:

• Circular Quay to Cockatoo Island 8.05, 8.50, 10.00, 10.45, 12.00, 12.45, 13.45
• Cockatoo Island to Circular Quay 14.15, 15.15, 15.38, 16.39, 17.15, 18.00, 18,40, 19.25

Customs House, Barnet Long Room and Library Meeting Room (CHL)
31 Alfred Street, Circular Quay (opposite Circular Quay train station)

Danks Street Depot
1/2 Danks Street, Waterloo

Hopetoun Hotel
416 Bourke St, Surry Hills

Hyde Park Barracks Museum (HPBM)
Queens Square, Macquarie Street, Sydney

InterContinental Sydney (IC)
Corner Bridge and Phillip Streets, Sydney

Sydney Jewish Museum (SJM)
148 Darlinghurst Road, Darlinghurst

Justice and Police Museum (JPM)
Corner Phillip and Albert Streets, Circular Quay

Kinokuniya Galleries
Level 2, The Galeries Victoria,
500 George Street, Sydney

La Perouse Public School
Yarra Road, La Perouse

Macquarie University (MU)
Balaclava Road, North Ryde

Museum of Sydney, AGL Theatre (MoS)
Corner Bridge and Phillip Streets, Sydney

Paddington Town Hall
Corner Oxford Street and Oatley Road, Paddington

Powerhouse Museum (PHM)
500 Harris St, Ultimo

Simmer on the Bay
Shore 2-3, 13 Hickson Road, Walsh Bay

Susannah Place Museum (SPM)
58-64 Gloucester Street, The Rocks

State Library of New South Wales (SLNSW)
Macquarie Street, Sydney

Sydney Observatory (SO)
Watson Road, Observatory Hill, Millers Point

Sydney Opera House (SOH)
Bennelong Point, Sydney

Sydney Town Hall (TH)
483 George Street, Sydney

The Mint (TM)
10 Macquarie St, Sydney

The Tearoom, QVB (QVB)
Level 3, Market Street end of QVB

University of Technology, Sydney (UTS)
Lecture Theatre 4.13, Building 2, No. 1 Broadway, Ultimo

Vaucluse House
Wentworth Road, Vaucluse

Wharf Restaurant
End of Pier 4/5, Walsh Bay